U.S. Official In Moldova Amid Push For Integration

The coordinator of the U.S. Bureau of International Information Programs is due in Chisinau on May 14 as U.S. and European Union officials try to speed Moldova’s integration with western institutions.

Macon Philllip plans to meet with members of nongovernmental organizations in Moldova.

He also is to meet representatives from Moldova’s public and private sectors to discuss the development of new and traditional media in the country.

His visit comes a week after Moldova’s Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration, Eugen Carpov, said in Washington that Chisinau is concerned about how Russian state-run television presents information about Moldova’s breakaway Transdniester region and Ukraine’s crisis to viewers outside Russia.

It also comes a day after European Council President Herman Van Rompuy invited Moldova to sign an EU association agreement in Brussels on June 27.

Van Rompuy said in Chisinau on May 13 that Moldova belongs in Europe "by history, by geography, by its way of life, by culture."